Three point fourteen
by iExpress
Summary: "What'll it be, Toots?" The greatest danger of a circle is that there is no end to one. All Wendy can do is go forward... but a vicious cycle will take its toll. Notes: Takin place during the series. T-rated for heavy subjects and events.
1. Round and Round

It was supposed to be one of those nice, enjoyable, simple days. Work was done, sun had been setting and the air was pleasantly warm and buzzing with the noise of evening insects. In the hindsight, Wendy knew the day felt a bit too good to end on a positive note.

Grudgingly, she put her cellphone back in her pocket before turning to her friends.

"Sorry guys, I'll have to bail on you. Stan is calling me back to the Shack."

"What, again?" Robbie looked at his red-headed friend incredulously, puffing out an annoyed sound before adding: "You know, lately you've been spending more time at work than with us."

"Not much I can do about it." Wendy shrugged in defeat. "Besides, if I don't listen to him I might even get fired. And god knows I don't want to spend the entire summer working alongside with my brothers."

"Yeah, wouldn't that be a riot." Tamry decided to be uncharacteristically chatty as her eyes left the cell phone screen. "You go on, Wen. We'll inform you about the change of plans, if there are any."

"Will do. I'll see ya soon!" With a wave of her hand, Wendy hopped onto her bicycle and rushed back to the gift shop, hoping that whatever it is Stan called her back for was well worth the trip.

By the time she came back to the Mystery Shack, the sun had already set and the sky turned to dark colour of magenta – perfect implication of just how much time she lost, which served perfectly to cut loose some of her usually thick nerves. Her friends were probably already being up to something fun and she was here, already losing the remaining few fragments of cool she had.

It was not the first nor was it probably the last time Stan had called her back to her workplace due to some unfinished work she was obliged to do. She cursed his observational skill in silence – sure he sometimes barely saw two feet ahead while driving but when it came to the shop, it was like the entirety of his perception grew inhumanly well. Whether it was the misaligned merchandise on the shelves or the trash that had been forgotten inside the store, the gift shop was supposed to be the epitome of perfection – or at the very least, as close to it as it possibly could be. Which was ironic, seeing as the rest of the house wasn't too clean to begin with. Stan Pines was many things but organized and neat were definitely not some of those; well, at least not while he wasn't working.

Wondering what the heck he called her back for this time, she opened the door to the gift shop, finding her eternally unsatisfied boss at the register, counting his ill-earned money. He gave her a deadpan stare, the kind even her cool couldn't quite sustain – while she was ready to flip out at the old man merely moments ago, she immediately sobered up at the sight of that stare.

"What is it, Mr Pines?"

Her boss leaned very matter-of-factly on the desk.

"Kid, how many times have I warned you about this thing?"

Wendy followed his pointed finger until her eyes stopped on one of the shelves. A display of interestingly framed sunglasses sat upon it. She had restocked them all she noticed and as such remained confused about the source of the problem.

Her snarky side showed as she let a small, smug grin climb her face, convinced Stan had **finally** made some sort of mistake calling her back here.

"About what exactly?"

Stan however didn't look too happy as he gestured for her to come and take a closer look. Only when he pushed a pair of sunglasses into her hands did she make a face – the entirety of the souvenir was covered in what were fingerprints of many, many nosy tourists who marveled the funky frame with imbedded images of unfamiliar little monstrosities. She had completely forgotten to clean them up and, here she gave a small hiss of dissatisfaction, the sunglasses were too many to count.

„I told you once, I told you a hundred times – this stuff is as visible in the morning sun as the freckles on your face. You can't have me selling merch like **that** in my shift."

Wendy gave a heavy sigh, glad she didn't screw something up seriously – that feeling however was incomparable to her frustration about the fact Stan called her back over something so… _ridiculous_. Thompson had probably already done something amazing enough for Tamry to put it online and she was missing it. Heck, even without that fun event, she still wasted precious time.

It was in the moment of weakness that she decided to say something about it.

"Mr Pines, would it have killed you to have done it instead of me just one time?"

"Hey. I'm not here to do your job, kid." His tone clearly indicated that she had taken it too far with her suggestion but Wendy's already weak nerves broke under the pressure of her boss' command.

"No, but I seem to be here to do all of yours." She retorted spitefully.

The look she earned from Stan would be enough to send any young kid running, and she would probably already be on her way were it not for the flame that started in her.

"You better watch your mouth, kiddo."

"I am **not** a kid!" Wendy exclaimed, getting seriously tired of the nickname.

Stan paused before rolling his eyes.

"Ugh, this again. Look, I already have two hormone-ravaged kids running around the place; I don't need your puberty acting up as well. Just get to work, will ya?" Without letting her say another word, Stan left her alone in the gift shop.

Mumbling some less inappropriate words under her breath, Wendy sat at her usual work place and started cleaning the darned sunglasses, her head already aching at the thought of spending the next thirty minutes doing something so pointless and missing out on what could've been a fine outing.

… For a while now, she had a feeling Stan had been doing nothing but using her 'inexperience' as yet another reason to force her to do menial tasks such as this one. Sure, she was young and yes, she might have only been a seasonal worker during the summer – but heck, she _had_ been working for… was it third of fourth summer in a row? She couldn't recall. Stan Pines didn't seem to have an issue with hiring someone as young as she was and Wendy definitely was desperate enough for some money of her own.

The more she kept thinking about it, the further it frustrated her – he had no problem hiring her at the age of twelve, yet somehow she was still just a brat? Incapable of doing her job well? Incompetent? Her brow furrowed as his favorite nickname, 'kid', echoed again and again in her head.

 _I'm a bit more mature than that._

There was nothing she could do, however. Except to get back to work and clean the damn glasses until they sparkled. She highly doubted Stan would ever value her 'cleaning prowess', should she try proving to have any.

It took her quite a while to clean the entire rack full of glasses and just in case, she took good care of dusting the old thing, too. When she was finally done, it was already dark outside.

"Mr Pines? I'm done with these." She raised her voice. Never hearing any sort of reply, she headed into the rest of the Shack, wandered around the kitchen and the living room – she even dared to wander close to Stan's private room and knock. No answer. Wherever Stan was, he didn't seem to think it was necessary for him to observe her work.

Feeling slightly perked up by the fact, she left the Shack and hopped onto her bicycle. The ping of positivity she felt upon not finding Stan disappeared like a pine beneath the avalanche when she realized her phone's battery ran out. Great. Now there was no way to find out where their friends were. In all likelihood they had long since stopped waiting for her.

Giving up on spending any quality time outside for the night, she headed straight home, trying to mask the feeling of disappointment.

It wasn't too hard, as the disappointment on her face was immediately wiped by a deadpan upon entering her home. Wendy truly and utterly loved her family but sometimes, only sometimes, she wished she wasn't surrounded by so much… _masculinity_. Especially in such a ridiculous form.

Her father had yet again somehow managed to crash down a ceiling lamp and didn't much care to fix it, probably being in a hurry. The duty of doing that usually fell onto her younger brothers, who however were much busier acting like, well… younger brothers. Two of them were making way too many unpleasant noises fighting over a video game and the third effectively ignored the chaos by turning up the music. The entire house was a mess and the sink filled to brim with dishes.

On one hand, Wendy knew it wasn't expected of her to clean up the house as if it was her duty as the girl of the house. With so many of them living underneath the same roof, it wasn't hard to do split the chores between them. But on the other hand, even though she disliked chores as much as the next person, she wished everybody would _stick_ to them at least half as much as she did.

She pushed the lamp subtly underneath the dining table (covered in more dirty dishes), determined on not even trying fixing it at _this_ moment, greeted her brothers (dressed in filthy clothing) and tried to persuade them with immediate failure to clean up the place (filled with dust), grabbed as much snacks as she could find (half of them already opened and long forgotten) and decided to spend her evening trying to follow the example of one of the boys –tuning out with music (in a messy room).

When she finally flopped on her bed in her pajamas and with music in her ears, Wendy for once felt _at peace_.

She sighed as she stared at the ceiling and felt her eyes closing. The music in her ears took her away for a while, the vocals of the song rebelliously yelling something about anarchy and kids ruling the world. Unconsciously, she smiled, both because of the absurdly childish lyrics and the ironical feeling of pride it caused in her.

…Wendy liked being a kid and was well aware of being one, but she detested being _just_ a kid; she hated being misunderstood. She hated not being trusted with taking care of things. She hated not knowing how to get her own brothers to listen to their oldest sister, who was supposed to be some sort of role model, apparently.

As weird as it sounded for someone her age, she hated not being able to be 'the responsible one' in a way that didn't made her look like a brat.

"I wish I was an adult." She murmured into nothing, leading a conversation with herself out loud.

The music in her ears stuttered and sang out an unfamiliar, crooked lyric she didn't remember. Then it stopped.

Her eyes opened.


	2. It Goes and Goes

Nothing.

Well… well of course, there was nothing there. Why would there be anyway, she wondered? Why did she expect anything?

Then she remembered the music stopping and shuddered as she registered the sudden silence around her. There was nothing she could hear, nor the leaves rustling nor the crickets chirping, not even her brothers causing mayhem downstairs.

Feeling cold, she looked at her CD player, its strange behavior registering as the only possible reason of things going weird in her mind. It wouldn't be the first time the ancient thing went bonkers but the air around her felt more than simply 'bonkers' this time.

She sat up and tampered with the cable for a little while. Contact didn't seem to be an issue, so she flipped open the lid.

The CD was still turning wildly. Round and round and faster and faster, so fast in fact that she could hear it starting to scratch at its container… Chills running down her spine as the sound became more and more obvious, more expressed, more high-pitched, she merely stared at it, waiting and waiting, until it came to a sudden stop and... _And it blinked open_.

Confusion turned to frozen panic as the slit pupil stared back, emotion of it completely incomprehensible until an energetic voice spoke to her.

" **Hello, toots**!"

Screaming out like she never did before nor she hopefully ever would again, Wendy pushed the CD player hard enough for it to flip from the bed to the floor. The lid broke, one of the batteries flew out and rolled across the floor and the… the _eye,_ was sent flying. …Quite literally, as it floated in the air, observing from above, staring straight into her as it spread into an ominous looking shape of triangle, the world around them suddenly engulfed in black and white.

Wearing a top hat… a tie… and… and carrying a cane.

" **I couldn't help but overhear you're in serious need of some somatotropin!** " The thing announced as it started to spread in size, suddenly occupying nearly half her room.

"Wh—who, what the heck are you?!" Wendy cried, watching with dread as the demonic little thing outgrew the room, completely surrounding the bed, his eye, now twice her size, observing her carefully.

" **Don't remember, huh? I guess I didn't leave much of an impression in the theatre! Or perhaps you chose to forget, who knows!"** He deflated at his own words back to a relatively small size, now playfully drifting through the room.

It finally started to dawn on her. The realization didn't make her feel any better, though.

"You—you're that— you're _Bill_?"

" **The one and only, Ice Bag!** " The demon span his cane wildly and bowed, taking off his tall top hat for a moment. " **So you DO remember me! I hope I didn't come across as rude or nothing! Who knows the kind of things Pine Tree told you, that kid sure hates my guts!** "

The last few words came out in a demonic sort of voice, very unlike his playful tone so far. As if to try and prove a point, he pulled out his gut. Where from exactly, seeing as his body was as flat as a piece of paper, Wendy didn't know nor didn't care because she was morbidly mesmerized by the sight of tiny, insect-like Dippers ripping at the demonic, purple colored insides, blood spurting all over the place and Bill giggling with delight at the scene. As blood sprayed her socks and the floor, her face started going white with shock.

" **Not an everyday sight for you, huh? That's OK, there's plenty of much neater stuff where that came from!** " Bill noticed the horrified expression of her face before cleaning the mess up swiftly, the army of Dippers disappearing from her sight with a wave of his cane.

A few moments passed before Wendy finally managed to form a coherent thought and sort of translate it into an utterance.

"The heck—why are you—I—I thought Dipper and Mabel got rid—!"

" **Whoah, whoah, slow dow, Red! I am not THAT easy to cast away!** "

Wendy shook her head, desperately trying to clear her mind and finally addressed the demon with a somewhat firmer note to her voice.

"Listen you—you creep, I want to have nothing to do with—with you! Dipper told me everything! There's no **way** I'm making a deal with someone like you!"

" **My oh my, no need to be so harsh! Look toots, all I ever wanted was a peek into the journal! For an old, bored guy like me, that can't be much to ask for – especially not if you can gain from it, as well!** "

Wendy made a face. It took her a few long second to ponder about whether she should tell him to get lost or question him. In the end, curiosity won.

"How would any of us profit if _you_ get your hands on the journal? You can instantly forget getting _that_ thing from me. Dipper told me—"

" **Dipper this, Dipper that, Pine Tree is a kid, if you forget! I don't think he comprehends the situation I'm in – why do you think I came to you?"**

Wendy blinked.

"Wha… what do you mean?"

" **Gee hun', and here I thought you were the** _ **cool**_ **one.** " Bill Cipher rolled his single eye at her, seemingly bored. Something akin to a stab nudged at her chest but she didn't know what to say. Bill seemed to have taken no notice of her thoughts, for he continues breezily:

" **The journal contains nothing I can't already comprehend. Except for one little thing, I suppose.** "

"… What is it?" Wendy found herself asking, not entirely sure why was she asking it anyway, not entirely sure why she actually cared.

" **Can't you tell? Look at me!** " He spun around and momentarily disappeared as he did, as she observed his impossible to see profile and Wendy surprisingly found herself understanding the predicament he was in, ironically not understanding how she did.

"You don't exist in our world."

" **Bingo! See, Red? You get it.** " For a moment, he almost looked forlorn. " **I can't say I don't miss engaging into the physical activities of Gravity Falls or, well, the entirety of your world, really.** "

"…You used to exist here?"

" **Of course I did! I was as real as Pine Tree or you, Red! And I was actually able to enjoy life!** "

"You mean, you… can't, anymore?"

" **It's a long story hun, and the bottom line is, I'm not allowed into your world anymore. Let's call it a tiny mistake in papyrology.** " Again, out of nowhere, he pulled out what seemed like a thousands of pages long contract.

Wendy didn't pay it much mind. Her head started to ache and she pinched the bridge of her nose, trying to let the information settle in her mind properly.

This wasn't right. She shouldn't feel sorry for him, she shouldn't be thinking about why and the how, she should simply send him away, tell him to get off her back…

But she knew what was it like, to not be understood.

"… What… happened?"

Bill fell awkwardly quiet, something she didn't expect from a loud mouthed demon like him, as short as their acquaintance was.

" **Nothing I'd be too willing to talk about but I'm sure you'll understand that! After all, no one seems to be understanding the way you feel, am I wrong?** "

As if she sank underwater, a weird sort of air surrounded her, and wherever she looked she saw the scenes, the memories of her life she didn't call back with any sort of fondness… Stan yelling at her again, this time for forgetting to take the trash out. Her father, wordlessly looking at her and her knowing what he was thinking, knowing he was wishing her mother was still here. Her friends, looking at her awkwardly whenever she so much as tried to start a serious topic and ended up distracting them from it with another joke.

Her heart sank into the pit of her stomach and she felt sick.

"Stop that." She said, trying to make it sound like an order but ending up barely whispering it out. "Stop that!"

Listening to her, Bill Cipher made the bad memories go away, and once again she was in her room, sitting on her bed and trembling in her pajamas, surrounded by her messy clothing and the remains of her broken CD player.

" **It sucks, doesn't it, Ice Bag?** "

It took her a few more moments to realize it was the sort of name he chose for her but she didn't question it. There was no place in her mind for such questions. Instead she was occupied by the feeling of anxiety, feeling of constant stress, feeling of being a helpless kid, desperately trying to be responsible in the face of adulthood, hers and that of others.

"It sucks." She confirmed quietly.

For a few moments, the demonic appearance was quiet.

" **I have a good deal for you, toots. And this time, I promise not to steal anyone's body forever.** "

Wendy gave him a shifty eye. Bill, lacking a face, with nothing but that single piercing eye allowing him to express any kind of emotion, was impossible to read; she didn't know what to think of that stare and decided that, in the end, it doesn't hurt to ask.

"What do you have in mind?"

Bill Cipher leaned back in the air and raised his few fingered hand – only to have three fingers suddenly shoved into the air.

" **Three minutes, fourteen seconds**." Bill said. " **Three minutes and fourteen second of your day, of every one of your days. That is all I ask for.** "

"Three minutes of my day?" Wendy pondered. Three minutes was nothing. She was able to spend hours just staring at the TV or just staring at the empty air at work, waiting for her shift to end. There was still, however, the question of her own gain.

"In exchange for what?"

" **You want people to start taking you more seriously, right?** "

It was futile to lie. Slightly embarrassed about it, Wendy nodded.

" **In exchange for three minutes and fourteen seconds of your every day, I'll make sure everybody take you as seriously as you can possibly want them to.** **You'd just have to watch out to, you know, not abuse it. Boy, did people know how to abuse it!** " His voice became positively gleeful again, but he didn't care to explain his statement.

Wendy made a face, clearly not quite understating what kind of benefit she was getting here.

" **Just think about it,** " Bill Cipher continued, as if reading her mind, " **you'd have your brothers realize the sort of authority you represent as an older sister. You'd have your boss respecting your contribution at work. You'd have your friends being able to help you with you issues. You'd have your father,** " here he paused and Wendy tensed up, " **see you for someone else and not just the child of a woman who left too early.** "

As he spoke, the ghostly apparition of her family, her friend and her boss showed up, all with promises of respect she craved so much, with words of comfort, with open arms and eyes full of understanding. Wendy felt tears prickling at her eyes as she once again saw the silhouette of her mother, the image she nearly forgot, and there was anger flaring up inside her.

"No, this- this isn't right! Leave me alone, just—just GO AWAY!"

And it all did. As sudden as it came, it left and she was once again engulfed in warmth of the summer air, the voices of her brothers reaching her from downstairs and the slam of the door indicating her father had just come back home. Her CD player still sat, whole and intact, next to her on the bed and the headphones were still stuck in her ears, blaring out silly and rebellious lyrics.

She ripped them out and opened it. The CD quickly came to a stop and didn't move anymore, resembling nothing more than a CD with an intense looking teens on its cover. No eyes, no demons, no contracts.

She swiftly put it away on her nightstand, turned off the light and pulled out a spare blanket before getting into her bed, suddenly cold, suddenly shivering.

Wendy realized she was coated in cold sweat.

The back of her head was damp.

Her teeth chattered and her skin crawled.

Before she fell asleep and drifted into restless dreams she wouldn't remember the morning after, a vision of the one eyed demon appeared before her, standing outside her window.

Always watching.

...it was almost comforting.


	3. Until the Exit is Found

Despite the fact she didn't wake up until late hours of the morning, Wendy felt tired and fatigued. It took a couple of minutes of staring blankly into the ceiling until the realization sank in – last night _did_ happen, and it wasn't just another dream. It wasn't _just_ a nightmare.

It was something she had the opportunity to dwell on.

She got dressed and proceeded with her usual morning routine only half aware of what she was doing, only realizing she was using one of her brothers' toothbrushes after she had already brushed them and pouring milk into a bowl before she had added cereals. As she was cleaning the mess she created on the table, the tiny voice of Bill Cipher seemed to whisper comforting words into her ear, the things he had already said last night and she, for one, didn't mind listening.

For a while now, Wendy was feeling pretty tired. Tired of her brothers' childish and absolutely bonkers behavior, tired of the fact no one was capable of taking her seriously, tired of her father unsuccessfully trying to remain cool and level headed in the face of the sadness that overwhelmed him whenever Wendy produced an expression too similar to that of her mom.

She made a queasy face as she pushed the half eaten breakfast away and promptly got out of the house, not entirely sure where she was going as she sat on her bike.

Perhaps it was the clear air or the workout the ride had given her but as Wendy distanced herself from the house she sometimes felt trapped in, her mind had made a slow jump to the most obvious solution to her small predicament: Dipper.

While her friend had told her just about anything he could about Bill Cipher and had made him seem like anything but a good guy, Wendy couldn't help but think of the demon's words and about the possible mistreatment he might've suffered in the past. After all, how much did Dipper know about Bill? What Bill did was definitely not right but… desperate times call for desperate measures.

She bit her lip as she slowly stopped at the shack, trying to wrap her head around the whats and the hows of the conversation she was about to have.

She didn't have to look for Dipper for long. He was lazing about in the couch, watching the re-runs of the crossover 'Ducktective VS Dogtective'. The moment he noticed her, he made that weird face expression which both made her smile inwardly and made her feel kind of sorry for the mess she seemingly caused in his head.

"Hey, Dipp-man."

"He-hey, Wendy! What are you doing here? I thought you were working the afternoon shift today?"

"Oh, I am. I just uh, I needed to talk to you."

There was a short pause in which Wendy could practically see whees turning in Dipper's head as he tried to figure out why did she sound so troubled.

"Oh. Alright then." She gratefully noticed he got quite serious the moment she said that. A small grin climbed to her face; she wondered how come she didn't think of this right away. Of all the people in this town, Dipper was the only normal person. Well… relatively.

She bit her lip yet again as she tried to make her question sound more casual.

"Well, it's not a big deal really. I was just wondering if you could, well, tell me a bit more about, uh, that Bill dude."

The reaction was instant. She saw the reflection of fear in his eyes and had a feeling she already screwed it up.

"Bill? Bill Cipher? The one who nearly got us killed on more than one occasion?"

A part of Wendy couldn't help a small, casual grin at the panic he displayed.

"Dude, calm down. I'm just curious, is all."

"Wendy, why would you want to know anything about that maniac? He's a psychotic demon whose only hobby is trouble! Didn't that story about forks in my arm say enough? I still got the scars, Wendy!"

"Sheesh, if I knew you were going to react this way, I wouldn't even ask." Wendy said before she could stop herself, frowning a bit as her eyes glanced at the scene of Ducktective running before the Pawlice Department, solely so she could look at anything but Dipper, feeling slightly irritated.

She heard him sigh.

"Sorry Wendy, I guess… well you can't exactly say my experience with him was entertaining, you know?"

"… Yeah, I guess." Wendy slowly replied as she sat down on the arm of the sofa. Before she knew what she was doing, she started talking in a way she never heard herself before. It was slow. It was soft. It was _deliberate_.

"Didn't mean to upset you, dude. I dunno, I guess I was just kinda intrigued. It's not every day that a thing like that shows up around here." She squinted. "Well, yeah, it actually is but he seemed like a bigger threat than convenience store ghosts or underground shape-shifters." She shrugged in a way she figured would look innocent. "I kinda thought it would be good to know more about him. For safety and stuff, you know."

Wendy herself wasn't sure where she was getting the entirety of her act out of, as she wasn't very used to persuasion of such deceiving kind – but she knew that should she tell Dipper what had happened last night, he would probably not only flip out but probably start some sort of scheme to stop a thing like that from happening ever again.

Which, at the moment, Wendy didn't want. Not until she knew what Bill Cipher could offer.

So she was surprised when Dipper looked at her wait a sort of astonished gaze and said: "That's actually a really smart plan. You know what…"

Dipper reached into his jacket and pulled out an old book she recognized as the journal he carried around with him. She got cold chills for a moment, knowing that, possessing it, Bill would come to talk to her again, likely to try to persuade her to hand over the old thing. She knew she would never do that but the mere idea of having to reject someone like him gave her uncharacteristic chills.

It had only in that moment occurred to Wendy that she was afraid.

"Now, you have to promise me not to give this to _anyone_ —"

"You know don't have to worry about _that_." Wendy managed a weak grin.

"—good. Just take it and return it to me when you read it. There is an entry on Bill inside of it. It'll tell you everything you need to know."

Little did Wendy know Dipper felt about ten feet taller at that moment, for he believed he had just find a way to indirectly protect his crush from harm by letting Wendy know.

Little did any of them know that he was doing the exact opposite.

She gazed at the book in his hand as she gently took it and ran her fingers over the old cover, looking at the worn out edges but the still brilliant and shiny piece of golden paper in the middle, black number three standing out like a dark omen before the sinister pages inside.

"Are you sure? I mean, you usually don't go anywhere without this thing."

Secretly, she was hoping he'd take it back.

"Hey, I trust you." Dipper smiled, a tiny blush on his smiling face. Wendy smiled back.

It was probably the only insincere smile she ever gave him.

* * *

It wasn't right.

Something was amiss.

More out of curiosity rather than any sense of security against the things described inside it, Wendy had been flipping through a few more interesting entries in the journal. She was lying on her bed, sun long since set and flipping through the pages of the journal she only opened once she was sure everybody had gone to sleep. Then she turned on the small lamp on her nightstand and wrapped herself again in a blanket, again feeling the chill in the air uncharacteristic to the summer air that likely had very little to do with the weather.

And as she did, she noticed something – some entries were the continuation to something which, she figured, must have been written in previous journals. The titular number three certainly wasn't there for aesthetics.

She had a feeling there was much more to Bill's history as she followed scribbled out words of praise and her gaze finally stopped at the warning:

" **BILL CAN'T BE TRUSTED**!"

Was there more in journals before?

… IS there more in the journals that follow? Are there more books?

Was she just being stupid for ignoring the blatantly obvious warning?

Sure, whoever wrote down these had obviously met Bill through and through but… what was before? What came after? What became of the author?

She shook her head – she was beginning to think like Dipper.

She shouldn't care about it.

She shouldn't wonder about any of this crap.

Almost regretting reading the damn journal, as it sprouted more questions and yet gave no answers, Wendy put the diary aside and turned off the light, throwing herself into the sheets and gazing into the bright, moonlit night.

The sounds from outside comforted her; the chirping or crickets, the quite song of the night birds, the rustle of the leaves in the summer breeze. A small smile and she closed her eyes, indulging the summer atmosphere…

…

…

…

The sounds paused, stuttered, faded and _stopped_.

Goosebumps were fresh on her skin.

Sweat was cold on her neck.

She didn't want to open her eyes again.

She didn't want to see the terrifying gaze of his one-eyed face.

She didn't want to hear the mocking tone of his cringe-worthy voice.

She didn't have a choice.

Her eyes opened and she gasped, a scream forcibly stuck in her throat.

" **Read it; haven't you, Ice Bag**?"


	4. Where it dwells, He Knows

The night was restless.

Wendy fell asleep only to wake up again and again, the shadow of Bill Cipher interrupting each and every one of her attempts to rest. Each time mocking, each time horrifying. Each time with a different thing to say. By the time morning finally came, she wasn't sure whether any of the images she saw were mere dreams or actual visitations, whether he truly greeted her or not, whether he tried to talk to her or was she simply so invested into the entire idea of the contract and the text of Dipper's journal that it simply invaded her dreams in such a tiring manner.

She called Stan in the early hour of the morning and told him she didn't feel well – for a change, this was actually true and not the means of avoiding work in favor of going to a party. He was surprisingly alright with it, which, she figured later, was probably due to the fact he didn't mind employing Mabel or Dipper to help around the store instead – if anything, it meant one paycheck less for him to give.

Her thoughts wandered to the journal lying on her nightstand up in her room as she flipped mindlessly through the channels on muted TV, drinking in the silence, ignoring the flashing images in the screen, the image of the one-eyed entity in her vision.

… It was easy to trust Dipper. And if the journal itself was any indication, if the Author was indeed to be trusted as much as Dipper insisted, there was no doubt about the malicious intents of the one-eyed demon.

… Right?

...

She related too much. She related too much to not being understood, as misunderstood as she found herself believing Bill might be.

She shouldn't believe it. She shouldn't think of it.

She found the re-run of her favorite music show. Her attention was piqued.

Soon, she forgot.

* * *

"Thank you, see ya' round."

Wendy greeted the last few of the customers out, slightly worn out but satisfied with the day. Though in general quite lazy and not exactly ambitious about her work, she liked a good crowd – it made the time go faster and the job less tedious.

She whistled a tune as she got to tidying up the shop, even remembering to take out the trash and clean the shelfful of snowballs that carried tiny pieces of red-coloured foam swiveling around a zombie-like creature rather than any winter-related motives. She was looking forward to the afternoon – Lee had found a new place to check out close to the desolate outskirts of Gravity Falls and it was apparently quite a sight; he didn't specify what it was, claiming they absolutely had to check it out themselves. Surely, it would be better than hanging out at the town's graveyard. It's been a while since they ventured a bit further out and since the adventure in the haunted convenience store; as bizarre and dangerous as it was, she had been feeling particularly bored, sometimes almost fondly remembering how Tambry was trapped on the inside of the security monitor, or how Lee was stuck on a cover of the cereal box—

She shook her head and made her own smile slip away. _No, it wasn't funny_ , she decided firmly and scrubbed a bit harder on the stained surface of a creepy looking snowball.

It's been nearly a week since the last time she saw Bill Cipher appear in her dreams – whether he was the figment of her imagination or appeared willingly was still a mystery to her – and she much preferred to keep it that way; but she was convinced Bill had messed, somehow, to some extent, with her thoughts. It wasn't as if she was losing it. It wasn't as if she had no control. But the amount of playfully sadistic thoughts she never remembered having before seemed to have… grown. Perhaps it merely seemed so to her, seeing as she usually had no such fantasies or dreams in her mind… still, for him to be able to do that while still not more than an appearance in her dreams, even if it barely interrupted her day and made no significant change to her routine…

She shivered.

"Hey, kid! Stop spacing out and get back to work, will ya? You're only half an hour away from going home anyway, no slacking off!"

The sound of her boss' voice made her jump. She mumbled back a response and knocked the thoughts of Bill Cipher out of her mind yet again.

* * *

"There it is!"

As Thompson drove down the narrow and unmarked path Lee had shown them, the boy excitedly pointed into the closing darkness. Wendy squinted – there in the shadows of the sunset, she saw something that looked like nothing but a simple, old wooden shack, about twice the size of an outdoor toilet. It stood against a sizable wall of rock and was covered in so much loose branches and leaves that it was hard to say just how big it was – it might have been stretching even further than she thought.

Robbie made a face. "Lee, if that's all there is to your surprise, you're seriously going to kill the vibe."

"Talk about a waste of time." Tambry chirped in to support her boyfriend, instantly updating whatever audience she had on her phone about the state of things. Nate however, much like Wendy, stared into the direction of the small cabin, curiosity piqued.

"Don't let the appearances deceive you, young one," Lee proceeded to whisper in a badly imitated tone of mystique, "for the thing you are about to see will be beyond the wildest of your imaginations!"

Wendy couldn't help an amused smile as they all exited the car and headed towards the rotten place. She looked up – little to no sun reached them here. It provided for an eerie atmosphere and she found herself enjoying already, remembering the strange shape shifter she encountered with Dipper but hoping it wouldn't come to something as dangerous as that. At this point, even Tambry put her cellphone away to get a better look at things.

"Now check this out!" Lee smiled ecstatically as he simply beckoned them to follow him and entered the tiny place.

His friends exchanged curious glances before going in.

It was almost entirely dark. Wendy squinted and made out pieces of broken furniture and an old oil lamp. There was nothing of interest around them, nothing but broken wood, debris and dust that made her nostrils itchy.

"I can't see a thing!" Nate complained and was promptly startled – all of them were – when Lee's voice suddenly echoed in the space that sounded bigger than the cabin they were in.

"Over here!" They heard a voice coming from, Nate suddenly realized, an open hatch in the floor.

"Nice of you to warn us, ya dolt! We could have fell right in!" Robbie complained – however there was an undeniable layer of tension over them once they realized the thickness of the darkness the hatch led into and they could practically taste the excitement. One flash of camera later, Tambry put her cellphone away and started to descend carefully, followed closely by the rest of the gang.

The space underneath was completely engulfed in darkness but Lee was ready – he was swinging around a flashlight and from what Wendy could see, the place resembled an abandoned mine of sorts. It was very old, judging by the rust-bitten, useless tools of iron and the distinct scent of rotten wood and it stretched into dark distances… into multiple directions, whirling about like a labyrinth.

"Uh, Lee, are you sure this thing is safe? I heard old mines like this easily collapse when fiddled with. Not to mention we could get lost."

Despite the fact each and every one of them rolled their eyes, Wendy felt like Thompson had the role of voicing her concerns most of the times she didn't want to for the sake of preserving her status of 'being cool'. Though she grinned cockily and tried not to pay half the mind to his words, she was likely the first and only person aside from Thompson to wonder if it was possible for any of them to get trapped underneath collapsing rocks.

"Come on ya big coward," Nate teased,"the longer you stand, the greater is the chance something will fall on you."

Thompson didn't seem to find a thing wrong with Nate's fallible logic – or if he did, he decided to keep it to himself – and followed his friends into the dark, Lee leading the way and ecstatically illuminating anything they saw.

The further they went, the colder it got and Wendy soon regretted not bringing an extra shirt – though it was one of those seething hot days outside, the underground of the mysterious passages felt freezing. Wendy was sure they must've been the first to set foot here in ages and wondered how come no one visited this place before or, at the very least, how come there were no signs of warning around it.

It was undoubtedly a sight to behold, however – the paths were branching into quite a few directions, some of them long since caved in, some of them stretching into unknown distances and some of them even forming into comfy looking areas, with old benches and tables, holding the remains of years old dishes, decayed chicken bones and what was left of a once whole and full barrels of coal.

The set of cold corridors was littered with items that have once belonged to the workers of the mine, among which they found a surprisingly intact pair of boots, many broken lamps, a tiny can of oil – in one spot, they even located a dysfunctional cart that missed three of its wheels and was much too heavy for them to manage to pick up. Still, their time wasn't wasted; they moved on sweaty and dirty but with several new friendly photos stored in Tambry's phone, goofing about and around the cart and with a rather entertaining image of Thompson taking up the entire space of its interior.

After nearly half an hour though, the crew slowly started to lose interest. Lee and Nate for one seemed like they could go on forever, chatting quietly and occasionally producing creepy noises in a lame attempt to try and scare Thompson – which, kind of sadly, actually worked – but Robbie carried the expression of distinct disinterest, the kind that strongly reminded Wendy of his current girlfriend's perpetual face of emotional void.

"It's friggin' freezing in here." Tambry complained and Robbie all but flipped out as he turned towards her.

"Aw, sorry babe, I wasn't thinking!" He took his hoodie off in a blink of an eye and Wendy looked away as Tambry shot her boyfriend the look of utter devotion, sporting a tiny grin. Absentmindedly, she wondered how the two didn't get together sooner.

"Whoah."

They all stopped in place at Lee's proclamation of awe, though whatever he was looking at went unnoticed by the rest. He stood in front of them all, frozen in place, illuminating something they couldn't make out from behind his back.

And just like that, the playfully adorable sight of the couple, Lee's and Nate's stupid noises, Thompson's entertaining squeals whenever he so much as thought of something creepy; all the scenes that kept Wendy casually going, not minding the cold, enjoying the silliness of her friends and adding wisecracking jokes to pretty much anything Thompson said disappeared as if by the wind and she felt it down to her bone:

 _Something was wrong._

"What is it?"

Lee didn't reply – they couldn't say for sure but something akin to a quiet groan seemed to have sounded off from him. Instead of saying anything however, he stepped backwards. As one, everybody else did the same, suddenly tense for reasons different from playful excitement.

Wendy took a breath of air. It was nothing.

She exhaled.

It was nothing.

"What's the matter, Lee?" She asked, trying to sound casual as she walked up to him and just as suddenly as he did, stopped in her tracks, eyes glued to the scene.

… That quiet groan definitely didn't come from Lee.

Wendy carefully reached over to Lee's flashlight and turned it away from the dormant scene.

Half illuminated, both of them looked at each other and Wendy, eyes wide with fear and so pale that each of her freckles stood out even in the semi darkness, gently shook her head.

Lee left the flashlight in her hand and, almost as if hypnotized, started walking back.

" _Wegottago_." He mumbled in a single, quiet breath to his friends.

Wendy could practically feel the sarcastic response forming on Robbie's mouth, saw his frown, noticed the fleeting, thin hand of Tambry's reaching for her phone and saw that distinct look of displeasure forming on Nate's face but before any of them could have done anything about it, complain, protest – _raise noise_ , which was by far the worst possible thing in the world – Wendy spoke deeply and slowly and quietly with a single word.

" _No_."

She wasn't sure how she managed to keep her cool enough to say that word with the amount of conviction she never knew she had but somehow, miraculously _somehow –_ they all understood. Quietly, one by one, they turned around, faces confused and scared, hearts beating almost loudly enough to be heard over the now audible groans in the darkness. She saw Tambry clutching Robbie's hand and felt the cold sweat of Nate's skin on her arm as him and Lee huddled together next to her, could feel Thompson's massive shoulder on her right side, all of them stepping slowly and quietly back into the darkness they came from, praying that the walk back would be shorter than they remembered.

The groan turned into a prolonged sound of gentle growl. There was a terrifying chill on the back of her head.

Everything fell quiet.

Their steps were scarcely heard, the sound of crunching gravel nonexistent underneath their careful feet, breathing stopped.

What seemed like an eternity later, Wendy dare to take a breath of air.

The dust tickled at her nose.

She held her breath.

It didn't help.

Sweat formed on her brow and with the ferocity she couldn't keep in check, Wendy breathed in and sneezed.

Perhaps it had only felt that way. It might have been a sneeze – for all they knew it may have just been a cough, a hiccup even – but it didn't matter, for whatever it was that Wendy couldn't hold in, it echoed clearly in the tunnels of the cave and much louder in the mind of the already terrified fifteen-year-olds.

All time and sounds stopped.

The silence was deafening.

"RUN!"

Wendy had no idea whether it was her or someone else who shouted it out but her friends were in motion before the word resonated properly around them – Wendy dashed after them, hearing noises of shifting rocks and rushing steps behind her.

"Dammit!" It was Lee's voice that cursed, followed by the sound of breaking but in the next moment everything went dark and Wendy could see no more. The flashlight was gone and her best friend screamed.

"TAMBRY!" Wendy roared, running towards the place she last saw the trace of purple locks. "GO AHEAD! RUN STRAIGHT AHEAD!"

She wasn't entirely aware of what she was planning until she had turned right, towards the only passage she remembered and heard whatever was chasing them turn right with her and she knew her plan succeeded. The gang might not have known how to get out but for the time being it didn't matter – for now she needed to lead it away, to lure it far from them…

What was she thinking? Why did she possibly think this was a good idea? What was it that made her she would be alright, that risking her own life won't actually mean her end—

Arms outstretched in front of her, her hands crashed against the wall and she groaned but it took her a mere moment to get her thoughts together and she turned left, praying she wouldn't run into a wall too soon. And as she ran, as if that hard crash helped her regain her senses, she realized something amazing and frightening – she had seen _it_ before.

And before she could wreck her brains around where exactly was it that she had seen the thing that was out to get her skin, Wendy tripped and fell, hard, her head hitting hard against the floor and remained lying, the dark before her eyes now real.

* * *

 _The world was in black and white and light._

 _Her body was in pain._

 _The cave resonated with the sounds she didn't know._

 _"Dammit, dammit,_

 _you have to get up._

 _Let me get up, please, please,_

 _I can't leave them alone,_

 _I don't want to die,_

 _let me get up,_

 _wake up Wendy,_

 _run._

 _WAKE UP AND RUN._

 _WAKE—"_

 _"_ _ **Gee, Ice Bag, am I that much of a nuisance?**_ _"_

 _Every muscle aching, her forehead bleeding and her entire arms trembling as she picked herself up from the floor, Wendy stared in disbelief and wonder as the glowing image of Bill Cipher appeared before her, twirling his stick and tipping his hat off to her – and though there was but one eye to express his emotions, she was undeniably certain there was a twisted smile lingering on the inside of his triangular frame._


	5. Trust No One, It said

_Wendy stood up slowly, carefully, the sickly bright shape of Bill making her eyes water and her head spin. The surroundings, now illuminated but of no colour, were still and silent despite the fact there was something behind her just a second ago-_

 _"That thing-" She turned around and gasped, a snarling mouth filled with misshapen teeth glaring straight into her face, pale, milky eyes popping out furiously, the entire face contorted into a furious mess only a few inches away from her head – but as still as a picture, suspended in the mid-air like a weird, horrifying statue._

 _"_ _ **Man, you're catching eyes of guys all over this little town**_ _!" The demon playfully said as he gave a suggestive wink (how Wendy managed to interpret it as a wink was beyond her comprehension, but she did) and nudged her shoulder. "_ _ **Better not make it a habit! You don't wanna see me jealous, Red, I tell ya!**_ _"_

 _"What's going on?" Wendy replied, her confusion and fear giving little space left to retort to Bill's teasing. Somewhat deflated from her inability to accept his humour, Bill shrugged and replied:_

 _"_ _ **Nothing much! You've managed to wake up a Windigo from its sleep, save your friends, sentence yourself to death and summon me all at the same time! I gotta say, for a piece of hormonal human flesh pile, that's quite an eventful day!"**_

 _"I didn't summon you." Wendy blurted out the first thing that bothered her but Bill merely laughed._

 _"_ _ **Minor details!**_ _" He waved his hand. "_ _ **It doesn't take much these days. When I see a soul in trouble, I just feel the aching need to be of assistance.**_ _"_

 _"Yeah, I'm sure you do." Wendy bitterly replied and shivered underneath the very stern gaze Bill gave her._

 _"_ _ **Why, that was unnecessarily rude, Icebag. Since you don't seem to be appreciating what I'm trying to do here, I guess I'll be on my way, then.**_ _"_

 _He turned around and started to float away casually and the reality suddenly distorted and wavered, as if looked at through the ripples in the water. Wendy noticed with more than a bit of fright that the Windigo slowly, as if fighting time itself, started to regain motion. She breathed out and instinctively reached for Bill in a fit of blind panic._

 _"W-wait, hold on, don't go, please!"_

 _As the demon paused in his leave, so did the time again and he turned around, gazing at her with a cold, calculating look that made her mind go blank._

 _"I'm sorry, okay?" She paused, unsure what to say next, when Bill cheered up instantly, his suddenly joyful demeanor making her flinch._

 _"_ _ **Apology accepted, toots! Now if you wanna act as sweet as you look, you might wanna hear me out!**_ _"_

 _He cleared his unexciting throat before he began to explain – in an uncharacteristically serious manner – to the suddenly attentive teenager._

 _"_ _ **Now you might think I somehow stopped time, which I assure you, I usually would do – but I'm sad to say that the apparent pause the time took in its passing is all in your head. After all, it is my specialty to force this entire conversation into the few seconds you were out!**_ _"_

 _"You mean..." Wendy squinted. "I'm not conscious at the moment?"_

 _"_ _ **Exactly so, Red! I knew you'd get the hang of it! This scene here,**_ _" he gestured to the Windigo, "_ _ **is literally the last thing that went on before you fell and hit your cute little brain.**_ _" He gave her head a gentle knock and she could feel her own actual brain squirming about for a moment._ _"_ _ **Which was probably the best thing that ever happened to you, because this blind abomination here will jump right over your head in its attempt to snack on ya. Lucky for you, I know the perfect way out of your little conundrum."**_

 _Wendy shivered at the thought of the crooked teeth against her skin and shook her head violently in an attempt to stay calm._

 _"What do I need to do?"_

 _Bill snickered before echoing her words. "_ _ **What do you need to do?**_ _" His palm was suddenly engulfed in blue flames and he offered it to her._

 _"_ _ **Shake my hand."**_

 _Wendy froze and spoke, every word dripping with conviction._

 _"I'll rather die right now than let you get a single look inside that journal."_

 _A moment passed. Bill blinked slowly and started speaking in a tone Wendy couldn't define as anything else but soft, which sounded incredibly weird coming from someone like him._

 _"_ _ **You're a brave one, Red, which I do commend. But I don't seek the information in the journal. I seek to feel alive once again, just this time. Three minutes, fourteen seconds of this day alone, starting from the moment we make a contract. I save your sorry skin in return.**_ _"_

 _The more Wendy heard, the more excited she felt. Was the demon really that merciful when he sought nothing but a bit of time in her body – at that, the time he'd be willing to spend to save her life?_

 _"How would that benefit you, though?" She suddenly realized, shooting him a shifty look. "You want three minutes in control of me just so you could save me? That has to be the most utter pile of bullcrackers I ever heard."_

 _Bill laughed._

 _"_ _ **Oh, Red! You do amuse me so!**_ _"_

 _Wendy couldn't decide whether it was his next reply, or the suddenly demonic tone that came out of him that scared her more._

 _ **"**_ **I WANT THE TIME OF YOUR EXISTENCE SO I CAN SEE AND FEEL THE BLOOD OF THAT THING ON MY HANDS, _TOOTS_** **.** _ **"**_

 _Noticing he'd startled her into terrified silence, Bill shrugged, his voice returning to his usual, uncomfortably loud tone._

 _"_ _ **You didn't think I wanted your skull to remain intact out of the goodness of my heart, did you?**_ _" He opened up an empty space on his chest as if trying to demonstrate the lack of heart, the same space, Wendy quietly noticed, where Bill once hosted a gut infested by Dipper-like bugs. "_ _ **I don't want to be a hero, Red. I don't need to be remembered for a good deed. I want to feel alive. I want to feel the rush of adrenaline and the pain in my legs. I'll laugh at the injuries I manage to get and feel an immense satisfaction once I kill that abomination of life for you!**_ _"_ _He swirled around her playfully. "_ _ **So unless you know how to do it yourself, I suggest letting me in**_ _._ _ **Three minutes, fourteen seconds. Only today, only this once. No tricks up this nonexistent sleeve!**_ _" He once again extended his hand, flames shining brighter than before._

 _Wendy looked at the palm outstretched before her. Three minutes, fourteen seconds. Why not? It was only now, it was only today. She'd survive. Her own hand hesitantly started to rise, her eyes fixated on the tiny black fingers and the icy blue flames licking them, her mind racing in an attempt to recall the page of the journal and what she had read in it-_

 _She blinked, her eyes refocusing on the blue flames._

 _"Fire." She mumbled out and looked up into his eye. She remembered, and he knew that._

 _Wendy had expected him to get angry. To start negotiating more, to start convincing her she couldn't do it alone. To scare her into a contract, to try forcing her into playing his game, whatever his game really was._

 _Instead, the demon let out a hum._

 _"_ _ **I'm impressed, toots. You actually remembered.**_ _"_

 _Wendy oddly found herself to be flattered by his words. She found herself incredibly impressed by his cool. She found herself wanting to believe this demon will hold his part of the deal._

 _"I did remember. And I do know what I could do."_

 _She remembered the old, intact can of oil they found into while exploring the mines. She recalled some of the way through the tunnels in the dark. She figured she could use some matches to distract or startle the Windigo at the very least while she found the way back, while she blocked the tunnel with oil and fire, how she, if a bit of luck was to be had, she could even get rid of the things permanently._

 _"I can do it."_

 _The blue light was gone and Wendy blinked. Bill had put his hand down but seemed anything but disappointed._

 _"_ _ **You've got a lot of guts indeed, Red. I can respect that, although it means little in a grand scheme of things!**_ _" He turned around and started to leave._

 _"_ _ **You know what? I think you'll manage on your own!**_ _"_

 _The world started to break around her and she could hear Bill giggling delightfully._

 _"_ _ **One last thing, Icebag – play dead and sneak ahead!**_ _"_

 _And with those last words, the dream world around her shattered._

* * *

Wendy woke up in a small, warm puddle of blood, horrible pain in her knee and eyes stuck on the darkness ahead of her. A large, hunched shadow paused its hunt and started to search for its prey. It's disfigured feet were an arms' reach away.

Her muscles, instinctively, started to tense, ready to get her off the floor, ready to run, when the voice once again echoed in her head:

" _ **...play dead and sneak ahead!**_ "

Though her entire being was screaming at her to get up and move, Wendy decided, against her body, against her common sense, against the nagging in the back of her head that repeatedly reminded her of journals' warning and remained still on cold, dusty floor.

The Windigo ahead of her blindly touched at the walls, tried to sniff but for reasons Wendy wasn't familiar with, couldn't seem to find her by scent. She didn't know if it even could, or if it was even mad luck that this one in particular had issues with it, or if it caught the smell of something different but the thing wonderfully, amazingly darted ahead of her, and left her in the dark, aching, scared to death and amazed at her luck.

As quickly and quietly as she possibly could, Wendy picked herself up and once again the last words of Bill Cipher echoed in her head. If it were to judge by his words, she was to follow the Windigo into the darkness.

Was she insane enough to do it? Brave enough?

Still feeling as if she was testing her own luck rather than the trust she suddenly put in the dream demon, Wendy swallowed and with one hand on the wall of the passage, slowly started to follow.

She could hear it sneaking around ahead of her, its quiet growls and snorts, the way its long, disfigured fingers touched at the walls of the cave and it's oddly shaped feet dragging themselves across the floor. Wendy listened and listened and realized she was listening to something her fear didn't let her hear before. It registered in her mind, the sound it made, the same way she recognized a footprint of an animal or a claw mark on a tree and Wendy knew she could use those sounds to her advantage as she realized – the Windigo was limping. It was likely the only reason it hadn't caught up to her before.

Then there was its breathing. It wasn't quiet nor was it out of breath. It didn't took slow careful breaths of air nor did it sound like panting. It sounded hard and difficult, it sounded like pain. It was old, or sick – or both. If the events so far were any proof, it couldn't have felt her scent if she stood right in front of it.

The Windigo was merely a shadow of a beast it once was and with that information, Wendy knew she had a chance.

Encouraged, she moved on, following the injured monster deeper into the mine, not sure where she was going.

She heard a clang of something metallic, something rolling on the floor and the step of the Windigo as it put its foot into something wet, barely a few feet away, right in front of her. Wendy froze. There was no way she was that lucky. There was no way it spilled the same can of oil she'd needed.

She had no other options than to put her faith in the advice of Bill Cipher and believe that she had the same crazy streak of luck Dipper and Mabel encountered on their adventures.

Her hands shook as she took out a box of matches and carefully pulled one out.

...

Later on, she could barely recall how she did it and was scarce with words when her friends asked what had happened in the mines below them but a few memories remained vivid in her brain - the twitch of her hand, the burning smell of match as it flew through the air, the fire that started beneath the Windigos' feet…

...and the one she couldn't quite place, one she didn't want to believe but was certain she saw…

...the shifting colour of the flames, from the bright red, into blue.


	6. And You knew It was Right

As she was lying on her bed, Wendy could hear nothing but the sound of absolute, deafening silence and that's when she realized she wasn't awake anymore. It was the silence the sound of which she learned to recognize, the kind that occurred whenever _he_ would come into her dreams.

This time, however, Wendy reveled in the sound of nothingness and didn't open her eyes though she knew he was there, waiting for her reaction, waiting for her to realize – but she opted against it. There was no fear, no panic, no worry. All she wanted was to rest her mind in this world were nothing was. Whether it had been a second, an hour or the whole night, while in here, trapped in her own dreamworld with a dream demon that just wasn't giving up, it felt like it could go on forever and it felt, much unlike Wendy's life, peaceful. After spending half a day running from, stalking and killing a Skinwalker, she figured she'd rather have the rest of the summer be a bit more boring.

… But just a bit.

Her eyes never opening, Wendy wrapped herself better in her blanket and finally addressed him, though she sounded as if it was quite an effort on her side:

"Can't you just let me sleep? I'm done with this day."

There was a pause. Then a nearly hearty chuckle.

" **My** **oh my Ice Bag, I guess you gave yourself a workout today, huh? No matter. I can wait.** "

When she felt her whole mattress bounce, she knew Bill just made himself comfortable in her own bed and felt a few degrees colder knowing he was right there next to her. Though it was only in her mind, the fact that all it took was her turning around and opening her eyes to see him at such vicinity didn't make her feel any better.

She didn't know whether she actually slept. She didn't know if it was possible to sleep within her sleep. She didn't know how much time it passed before the mess in her mind finally subdued but when Wendy finally sat up, she felt refreshed. Mentally preparing herself to face the demon, she turned her head-

And started laughing.

" **Now that's a reaction I hadn't received in quite some time!** " Bill squeaked, and Wendy wasn't sure whether he was proud or kind of offended, so little did his tone give away. She however couldn't simply ignore the fact that Bill Cipher – the dream demon who barely let her sleep, was a potential threat to everything she knew and the guy who saved her life not twelve hours ago – was wearing pink, heart patterned pajamas. If he was going for grabbing her attention, it sure as heck worked.

"What in the world is that about?"

" **Don't get attached to my currently innocent sense of humour too quick! Just want you up and awake, is all!** " Bill poofed his amusing attire away, now lingering in the mid air. Wendy rolled his eyes.

"Not like I had high hopes for befriending demons from another dimensions, you know." She deadpanned. He gave her another one of those impossible winks.

" **You're breaking my heart, toots!** "

Incredibly, she laughed again.

"What is it you want now?"

Bill spun around.

" **Funny, I was going to ask you the same thing!** "

"… huh?"

" **I might not have access to your mind or body, toots but I can tell y'got something to say! I haven't spend thousands of years manipulating people without learning a thing or two about them!** "

Wendy opened her mouth to tell him that he was utterly in the wrong and found herself instead trying to appropriately word what was going through her mind.

It took her a little while and the demon, again, seemed alright with waiting it out, conjuring and entertaining himself with tiny wooden, grotesque-looking figurines of people of Gravity Falls, staging a mute and very dark show out of them. She watched him take the piece that was without doubt representing Lazy Susan and observed, mildly horrified, as it came to life and stabbed Old Man McGucket in the belly repeatedly. There was no blood. Only splinters and pieces of wood. The tiny McGucket screamed in tiny voice, waving his tiny arms. Numerous other tiny shrieks joined his as the figurines suddenly turned violent.

She found the fact she didn't even bat an eye at the scene more disturbing than the scene itself.

After a while she realized what she wanted to say was actually quite simple – but it was the fact she was saying it to _him_ that made it so hard to figure out.

"… Thanks, for helping me today."

The words of gratitude hung low over the tiny macabre scene. The tiny wooden citizens of Gravity Falls all paused in their numerous wrongdoings and stared up at her. Caught unprepared by catching the eyes of the toys, Wendy looked up. Bill Cipher's eye was closed as he waved his hand and the wooden denizens of Gravity Falls disappeared and when he opened it, Wendy could have sworn there was a smile in his voice.

" **It's what I do. For a price, of course.** "

Ah, the price.

 _But wait_ , Wendy thought...

"… I didn't give you anything."

" **Ah.** " Pause. A shrug. **"Got me there.** "

Wendy let an amused smile climb her face.

"What, that's it? You expect me to believe you did it _just because_?"

" **That's actually the only plausible explanation, toots!** " Bill snickered. " **I certainly didn't do it because your death would make me lonesome! Though I do have to say it would be sad if Gravity Falls lost such an interesting character!** "

Wendy rolled her eyes. After a short silence, she abruptly decided being blunt was just about the best, if not the only way, to talk to the likes of Bill.

"So what, that's the only reason you're here? You figured you wanted to hear a pathetic little human thanking you for saving her skin? I doubt you crave praise that much."

" **Well!** " Bill spun around. " **Well, well, well, the mouth on this one, I tell ya! Can't an agent of chaotic good just enjoy the company of his peers?** "

"Remind me how old you are again?" Wendy watched him wave a dismissive hand and suddenly the world spun, a light breeze in her hair as she watched images of human history flash around her.

" **Ah, age! A number! Construct of human civilization! Age doesn't add to growth yet growth adds to age – only at different speed, you might say!** " The flashing images paused, much to Wendy's wonder. At the scenes of her day. Of the dreaded faces of her friends, the hideous monster… but many images were of her. " **Take you, for one! Things you did today are the things many grown people would never dare! I met grown men and women crying at the very thought of an entity like me, people who died of shock and panic upon getting a whole lot of that cruel little thing called 'living' shoved into their faces! People die every day, Red, because they just can't take the heat of the life's kitchen!** " He nudged her. " **Now I know** _ **you**_ **can take it, Red. You've proven it to me more times than you know. But like I've said already – you don't have to keep taking it. You could have it easy. You could rest. If you were to let your suffering become my burden and responsibility, you'd make yourself happier and make me satisfied. And then perhaps I'd leave that little bugger and his precious book alone for a while."**

"… How could you possible enjoy the stress I'm going through?" Wendy questioned just about the most baffling thing. She could hear him sigh and frowned. "Well excuse me if I don't get your weird needs, dude."

" **I suppose you couldn't get it if ya didn't see for yourself. But there's a beautifully simple example I can give you without putting you through the concept of enduring what I endure.** "

"Yeah, I'd appreciate that much more."

" **Well then, imagine this amusing world, toots!** " Bill put his arm around her shoulders, drawing awkwardly close and displaying the world before her, which suddenly seemed sort of… grainy. Like an old television screen. " **Imagine if all your life was merely words. Heard on TV or read in a book. If you knew what it was like to feel sand on your toes or a breeze on your face or a scratch on your knee thanks to someone's description but never felt it yourself. If you were nothing but a numb mess, watching other lives go by and never being a part of them. Basically, you're spending your life reading, forever; or at the very least, until you perish into the void by means of one thing or another!** " He casually ended, gazing at the sightly horrified face of the teen.

"You can't… feel anything?"

" **Babe, if I could feel the shampoo in your hair or what your skin feels like, I'd** _ **much**_ **sooner try to flirt with you instead of possessing you for a little bit of such sensation as anxiety!** " And he started laughing, as if it was the funniest thing in the world, as if his inability to experience the world the way every single living thing ever did was the universe's biggest joke and he loved being the punchline.

He couldn't have possibly loved it but Bill laughed about weirder things and Wendy figured, in a small, rather enlightening moment... laughter was all he had. Laughing at everything and desperately trying to find some sort of joke, either sick or innocent joke, was all there was to the dream demon's eternal life if he was going to enjoy it.

" **Aww, now I went and bummed you out, Red**!" Bill noticed the look in her eyes. " **No need to worry about** _ **this**_ **little dorito of doom! I've managed for an eternity like this and I'm still holding up**!" He patted her shoulder in such a sympathetic manner that she even managed a smile.

"I suppose."

" **That's better**!" The demon hoped back on the bed, relaxing against one of her pillows. " **Kinda cute of you to worry about me of all things, though! I'm** _ **almost**_ **flattered!** "

"Well I can't help thinking I'd suffer for freakin' ever if I were in a similar situation."

" **Only for the first few hundred years, toots! After that, it's more of a really bad itch rather than torture.** "

Wendy shivered again at how casually, how loosely he used such heavy words as 'torture' and for a moment wondered how long could _she_ handle a mere itch of any kind before losing her wits. Heck, she was barely handling her own life right now. Perhaps she did handle it better than some but more often than she'd think possible, she felt like bursting at the seams…

"So… hypothetically, if we were to make a deal…," her questionable tone grabbed the attention of the demon, "… how exactly would you help me?"

" **Oh believe me, Red, you're not familiar with my ability to appeal to the human nature! I've lived since the beginning of time! There is no such mind I haven't met, got into and solved!** " He almost looked proud as he further added: " _ **Manipulation, persuasion and discretion**_ **, toots! Greatest tools against the mind, for the mind! I do my little psychological tricks, you come out of it happier, I tumble down the stairs once or twice for the kicks and the world is none the wiser!** "

Deciding the bit about the stairs was simply a bad joke, Wendy found herself drawn more and more to this arrangement. It wasn't like she herself never tried similar kind of… deceptive communication. Be it throwing on a puppy eyed look so she could get extra allowance, getting on Stan's good side whenever she had to ask for a day off or even making up something for her friends whenever she simply did _not_ feel like going out, it was always those little things. Perhaps it was Bill's more sophisticated, calculating influence that she was missing to achieve something more in life, to _be_ someone stronger, someone more important, someone who wasn't just-

 _Just a kid._

These days, she was getting sick and tried of being a kid more often than she thought she would be.

There was just one little thing she still had an issue with.

Trust.

Luckily for her, she was a careful girl, with a careful plan.

" **How about a test run**?"

For the first time since she knew him, Bill's blink looked almost confused.

" **A test run**?"

"Yeah." Wendy smiled almost smugly, proud of her idea. "One week. We'll try honoring each others part of the deal for one week. If we're both satisfied with it, we keep it up. If not, the deal is off."

Bill Cipher was quiet for a moment before he – again, she did not know how could she possibly tell – smiled rather wickedly.

" **I said it before and I'll say it again, Ice Bag – you're something else.** "

"Watch out, if you keep up with such flattery, I might start thinking of you as a friend." They both couldn't help a laughter and it was so strange, so strange how two enemies were arranging a deal, a deal she was so willing to fully put trust into – but she had one week to convince herself, didn't she?

" **This human, I swear! Don't sweat it, I know you're much more clever than that!** " The demon shook with unseen laughter as he offered her his hand, once again engulfed in those blue flames. " **Ready when you are, toots!** "

"We'll see about that." The teen replied coolly, as she placed her own hand into his and the two shook hands slowly, blue flame spreading but never burning, sealing the deal and beginning the end.


End file.
